“Outbound” or Outbound Management Programmes are a training method for enhancing organizational performance through experiential learning. Such programs are often also referred to as corporate adventure training and outdoor management development.

These programmes generally revolve around activities designed to improve leadership, communication skills, planning, change management, delegation, teamwork, and motivation. Participants are divided into teams and assigned tasks or activities for completion in a specified time. Achievement and performance during these activities is reviewed in group discussions to identify behaviours that enhance performance or lead to failure or decreased performance. Strategies are formulated to deal with factors that hinder, and these strategies are then put to use in the activities that follow, to test their effectiveness.

The factors behind this method gaining popularity among companies is the enjoyable nature of the activities, and the inputs of the participants themselves leading to development. This is considered to be an important part of adding to the “stickiness” of the learnings. The game-like targets also decrease resistance to negative feedback and makes it more likely for it to be accepted and acted upon. The stakes being low, further encourages risks involved with changing behaviour to effect performance and encourages experimentation.

Experiential Learning

Experiential learning is the process of learning through experience, and is more specifically defined as “learning through reflection on doing”. Hands-on learning is a form of experiential learning but does not necessarily involve students reflecting on their product. Experiential learning is distinct from rote or didactic learning, in which the learner plays a comparatively passive role. It is related to but not synonymous with other forms of active learning such as action learning, adventure learning, free choice learning, cooperative learning, and service-learning.

Experiential learning is often used synonymously with the term “experiential education”, but while experiential education is a broader philosophy of education, experiential learning considers the individual learning process. As such, compared to experiential education, experiential learning is concerned with more concrete issues related to the learner and the learning context.

The general concept of learning through experience is ancient. Around 350 BCE, Aristotle wrote in the Nichomachean Ethics “for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them”. But as an articulated educational approach, experiential learning is of much more recent vintage. Beginning in the 1970s, David A. Kolb helped to develop the modern theory of experiential learning, drawing heavily on the work of John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Jean Piaget.

Experiential learning has significant teaching advantages. Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline (1990), states that teaching is of utmost importance to motivate people. Learning only has good effects when learners have the desire to absorb the knowledge. Therefore, experiential learning requires the showing of directions for learners.